


Battle Before the Mission

by Rizobact



Series: Curb Finds [5]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: War for Cybertron
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have to win the battle in your head before you can win the battle in the field, especially when the opponent you're going up against is a master tactician.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Before the Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragonofdispair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/gifts).



> Written for a challenge in my writing group - part one was to write a short scene from one of our own not-yet-posted stories, and part two was to come up with a possible prequel/concurrent/sequel scene based on the others' fills for part one.
> 
> Draws on [dragonofdispair's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair) [Dark!Praxus AU](http://archiveofourown.org/series/263785).

Some battles were won in the mind. Not all battles; Jazz wasn’t so naïve that he believed that success was simply a factor of believing in yourself enough. Having confidence helped, of course, and Jazz did have confidence in his abilities. He also had confidence in his opponent, however. That confidence was what made him certain that he was the only mech who had a chance of success, and just as certain that if he didn’t go into this fully committed, that even he would fail.  
  
It wasn’t just a matter of outthinking the other. That was fortunate in a way, since even though it had been vorns since their last real encounter, Jazz knew that Prowl had lost none of his edge. Recently promoted Director of Special Operations he might be, and more than qualified for the job despite what certain Security Directors might think, but Prowl was something else entirely and always had been. The mech would run circles around him, outmaneuvering his every strategy, unless Jazz went in prepared to lose in order to win.   
  
This had to be all or nothing. If Jazz couldn’t find a way to bring him over, then destroying him was his only option. The mech was just too dangerous to be left to his own devices or to be allowed to ally with the growing Decepticon movement. Which left Jazz with a problem – he didn’t want to kill Prowl.  
  
That was the battle Jazz fought now in advance of the actual conflict. Outwardly still in a way that most would think unnatural for him, save the select few who knew better, Jazz stood already engaged in combat with himself and centuries worth of feelings running deeper than the substrata of the cities. He didn’t have the same processor for numbers and strategies that the Praxian did, but every scenario he ran came back the same. Jazz had to be willing to take that final step; otherwise, Prowl would call his bluff and he would escape, and that just wasn’t acceptable. Orion needed better results than that, and Jazz…what Jazz wanted only had a chance of working if he was willing to pull the trigger.  
  
Unaware of the irony of the situation he now faced, a mirror of the realization Prowl himself had made so long ago that he needed to let Jazz go that he might come back to him one day, Jazz prepared himself to let Prowl go.


End file.
